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Because of You

Dear Reader,

I am not the easiest person to be in a relationship with, and I blame my parents’ relationship for that, or maybe it’s just my interpretation of my parents’ relationship. It’s ironic that I name this piece after a song about divorce because my parents are not divorced. However, I call it this because in what feels like a desperate attempt to not leave my brother and I too feel the pain he did after his parents divorced my dad (and my mum) seem to have been unhappy for a long time.

Most people I speak to see Sunday as a day of rest, I have always hated Sunday’s. My earliest memories of Sunday’s involve my parents drunkenly arguing for hours until they both fell asleep in their chairs. Sometimes my dad would storm out of the house (I don’t know where he went) It was always a stupid argument, about money usually. I hated it, I hated watching them argue. I was scared they would get divorced, or my dad wouldn’t come back

I don’t know what happened with my grandparents divorce because my dad rarely talks about his childhood, but from what I understand it was an incredibly messy divorce. My Nan was left with basically nothing and my dad and his brothers had to live with my grandfather. My dad has never forgiven my granfather for what happened and until about 2 years ago pretty much refused to speak to him, which was awkward. It has also meant that sometimes my grandfather has tried to buy my brother and I’s love, or maybe my dads love. He once sent me £500 for a new laptop, which was awkward considering in reality, I have met the man maybe 6 times in my life.

But, I know my dad has done everything humanly possible to make sure my brother and I don’t have to experience what he did, which is an understandable and noble thing to want to do. But he has passed on his fear and anger to me (and maybe my brother, we don’t talk about it)

I have always hated when my parents argued, it used to make me upset and panicky. Now it just makes me frustrated and uncomfortable. I have vivid memories of my parents arguing in our living room doorway. I have another memory of an argument that happened after a relative’s party, I was very young I was in my bedroom. My parents were arguing in my bedroom, I don’t know what about. I was crying because they were arguing quite aggressively. My dad pushed my mum, he is not a confrontational man so she must have pushed him mentally or maybe phisically, I can’t remember what caused that reaction. I’m not justifying what he did, but I know that is must have been a response to something.

The next vivid argument memory I have is even worse. Once again after a family party we were going from the venue to a family member’s house. For whatever reason my brother and I were already at the house and my parents and my cousin had not yet arrived and I was getting anxious that they had not arrived yet. When they finally did arrive, they were having a full on argument, once again, I don’t really know what they were arguing about, but I seem to remember something about my dad trying to help some drunken woman (who they found lying on the street) to her house and my mum and my cousin being dead against it. After this argument truly exploded my dad stormed out. I don’t remember what happened, I think I was upset I seem to remember my cousin trying to comfort me, but we stayed at my uncle’s house a little longer, they may have offered to let us stay. But we went home, I was anxious all the way home scared something terrible would have happened to my dad after he left, but when we got home the bathroom light was on which meant he must have been home. But the front door was locked, we rang the doorbell, knocked the door but no response. He was asleep. My dad could sleep through anything. We had to wake my grandparents to get the spare key. All I remember is my mum saying “if he didn’t want us to come in he would have left his key in the other side of the door so we couldn’t unlock it” she was defending his behaviour suddenly, and that is something that has always confused me, they can go from explosive argument to acting like nothing happened within minutes, or they can drag it out for hours. They never resolve anything.

This all happened when I was younger than 12 years old, but the memories have really stuck with me and I have never grown out of the fear and anxiety I experience when they fight. When I got to about 15 I started to shout at them when they fought. They only do it when they are drunk so I would tell them to grow up which made them turn on me which is fine, because id rather they shouted at me then each other.

Today they had a stupid argument, my dad has drunk a litre and half of wine, my mum has drunk cans of cider and a vodka and coke. It began when my mum told him that he shouldn’t drink so much wine, so he said “usually I would have drunk a bottle of wine and two or three cans of larger” then it was over and he started timing something, my mum asked him if he was timing the song, he lashed out suddenly saying he was timing his game and how if my mum is not interested in him she should just turn the tv on and shut up. he talked about how she watches TV just to annoy him on a Sunday, so he can’t listen to his music. So he was saying “ill just plug my headphones in should I?, you come home and you don’t care about me” I got angry sitting in the middle of the most ridiculous fight I have ever heard and told them both to shut up and that I didn’t want to hear anything else about it. They stopped, but I was still frustrated because even at 25 years old this stupid, pointless argument, that they seem to have forgotten about 5 minutes later. This made me anxious and uncomfortable and in reality regress to the version of myself that was always terrified that I would never see my dad again if my parents continued to argue to the point where he had to leave the house.

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10 thoughts on “Because of You”

Thats a very stressful situation to be in, because you say it mushrooms out of something petty, but clearly they are locked into their own issues which leaves little consideration for you and your brother.

Anxiety shatters the peace of your mind, and can make it hard to sustain personal relationships, I’m sorry that I can’t offer any useful resolution, but keep writing , your not alone.

You must learn to know I. Your heart no matter what both love you unconditionally and will always be there in their own ways. Why. Cause you are wonderful and their daughter. The GIRL had a lot of these same feelings when she was young. Everything is ok

I feel terrible for you, and I know some people don’t like pity, but I really do wish you did not have to deal with fighting parents. My parents rarely get into big arguments, they love each other a lot, but whenever they do it really messes with me. I remember just crying quietly in my room once when I was really little, my parents were yelling at each other for hours. That is very unusual, and it disterbed me a lot. The worst part was part of their argument was about me. Mostly though it was about each others shortcomings, blah blah blah etc. Anyway, just wanted to let you know I understand, and I hope your parents realize soon how dumb it is to argue endlessly about unimportant things.

I was checking my reader list when i found your post, with this title that called my attention. As I was reading, I realized you were talking about something very close to me: Family fights. I grew up in a very hostile enviroment because of people who have the power tomchange my animic state, my mom and my grandparents (her parent). I was always a vicious cicle between them, there were no argumentd in the discussions (as they prefer to said), just obstinacy.

I tried to change the situation. Many times I shouted at them, tell them to shut up, but they would just looked at me and continued the next morning.

So I learned to just ignored them and find piece in my loneliness, but still it was hard. Now that I don’t live with them anymore I feel way more comfortable in my own space.

I believe in extraordinary efforts and patience, that was what helped me for years.